Newborn's Remains Go Missing From Hospital

(Newser)
–
Two weeks after a baby boy died shortly after birth at a Cincinnati hospital, crews were combing through the hospital's medical waste and laundry at a nearby landfill in hopes of locating the newborn's remains to return to his grieving parents, WKRC reports. And explanations from the University of Cincinnati Medical Center or police are in short supply. According to the AP, the boy and his twin sister were delivered premature Sept. 14; she was stillborn, and he lived for only an hour. When the parents attempted to make arrangements for their children's remains, they realized the boy's body never made it to the hospital morgue, WKRC reports. Nobody has seen it since.

"This situation is a tragedy for this family, and we are deeply sorry that we have added to their suffering," the hospital's president and CEO said in a statement issued Monday. The AP reports the hospital called police Sept. 23, but no criminal investigation is coming. "While this is a horrific thing that happened to this family and we feel for this family, our investigators concluded there was not technically a crime committed that we would investigate," a police spokesperson says. The hospital says it is looking into how the boy's remains could have disappeared to prevent such a "tragic human error" from ever happening again. The AP reports it remains unclear why the hospital waited two weeks to search the landfill for the boy's remains or whether the search is continuing. (Read more remains stories.)